George Tinari
Articles by George Tinari
Vibrance Photo Filter Creator doesn't shine so brightly
Vibrance is an app for iOS (compatible with all devices running iOS 4.3 and later) that lets you create your own photo filters using a combination of colors, contrast, opacity and a few other tools. It's free, but for the app to be at all useful to anyone requires an upgrade to Vibrance Premium currently available for US$0.99. When you open the app for the first time, it asks if you want to view a help tutorial. I wouldn't skip this because the UI is mediocre at best so you're better off learning the basics with a guide. After you're finished with the tutorial, it's time to start exploring the free version of the app. At the top is the image you're currently editing, which in the free version of the app is a sample image of a woman sitting in a field. Here's the catch: unless you upgrade the app to Vibrance Premium, that's the only image available for edit. Photo import -- a basic feature in any photo editing app -- requires a paid upgrade. Now that you've come to the realization that the free version of Vibrance is really more of a demo than a functional app, it's at least worth toying around with for a bit. Underneath the photo is an opacity slider which adjusts the transparency of the filter overlaying the photo. Slide all the way to the left and you have your original photo. All the way to the right and you have the filter applied in full effect. This comes in handy as sometimes the colors are a bit too strong. Toward the bottom is where you create your filter. The app presents a full color wheel (or literally a color rectangle in this case) plus some preset colors to choose from, but they're so small to tap in the iPhone app that you're better off ignoring them. It's a bit easier in the iPad app which is just a scaled up version. The gradient bar is where you add the colors you select to blend them together and create the filter. In my experience, it wasn't easy picking a combination of colors that looked decent for the photo even when I turned down the opacity. I resorted to using my favorite feature in Vibrance, the Shuffle button floating at the top right. When enabled, shake your iPhone or iPad to apply a randomly generated filter and most of them do look pretty good. I suppose it's also worth mentioning the app includes some finer controls for saturation, contrast, brightness and hue but with the inability to import your own photos for free, these don't matter very much. What Vibrance comes down to is this: to apply and save professional pre-made filters or create your own for your own photos, upgrading to Vibrance Premium for $0.99 is your only option. For free, Vibrance is, quite frankly, useless. That said, if you are going to spend money, you're better off with apps like Afterlight ($0.99) or Camera+ ($1.99) which have far more features for perfecting your photos and include a multitude of adjustable filters, too. Compared to these, Vibrance isn't all that vibrant. UPDATE 8/20/14: The developer has reached out after this review was published to announce that version 1.0.2 of Vibrance is now live in the App Store and adds photo importing to the free version of the app, dramatically improving its usability. That's one negative now effectively null and void.
Hellow! is like Snapchat for your more precious moments
Hellow! is a free photo-sharing app for iOS that in practice is somewhat similar to Snapchat, but still clearly serves a different purpose. Photos don't disappear until you manually delete them, and the ability to schedule when and where to send them means planning a thoughtful picture to share ahead of time is far more plausible. These additional features for photo management make it less geared for casual use and more toward meaningful use. Hellow! works on all iOS devices using iOS 7.0 or above. The name of the app puts it at somewhat of a disadvantage right off the bat because search engines think you meant to type "hello." Finding the app using the link above or through the website are your best bets. That said, once you've actually installed the app, the experience gets better. On the main screen, there are three tabs at the top: one to display Hellows sent to you, one for Hellows you've scheduled to send and one for Hellows you already sent. The sender's username, date and location accompanies each photo - the latter will oddly just say "Anywhere :)" if the sender didn't attach the location. Opening any Hellow brings up options to download or delete it, plus a comment box where everyone who received the Hellow can post comments. The chat bubble icon on the top left of the main screen opens up an activity pane as well where everyone's likes and comments are collectively shown. The concept here is that a single photo is enough to spark a conversation between either two people or a group of people, and it's actually quite nice. I can see how sending a photo from vacation to a group of friends, for example, might get a decent amount of engagement on Hellow! then friends can reply with a photo of what they're up to. The app really pushes for the photo-sharing aspect though. In fact as soon as you open Hellow! the camera will slide in from the bottom even if you have new messages to view. Thankfully, there is an option in the settings to turn this off. To send a Hellow, either tap the camera icon at the bottom of the screen or make use of it automatically after startup. Snap a photo, enter in an optional message up to 140 characters and pick contacts to send it to. This is the part for me where the app really shines. Once you choose contacts to send your photo to, the app lets you choose when you want to send it or where you want to send it from. Schedule to send a Hellow immediately, as soon as in one hour, a month from now or at any date you choose in the future. If you're more interested in the where than the when, set up the Hellow to send when you're at a specific location. This feature is extremely clever and makes the app simultaneously more fun and more useful. The app even allows you to send Hellows to yourself, which could come in handy as somewhat of a photo reminder service. While Hellow! comes across as a great, feature-packed app for sharing and commenting on meaningful photos with friends, it's an app that requires you to already have friends signed up for it to be at all useful. Still, if you're a trendsetter and don't mind giving this free app a shot, definitely try saying hello to Hellow!